Free Summer of the Geek by Piper Banks Page B

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FROM: [email protected]
RE: A Foggy Day in London Town
     
    Darling,
    What do you mean you haven’t decided where you’re going to live next year!?! London is so much more fabulous than boring old Orange Cove!
    I know that you were looking forward to writing for your school magazine, but trust me, darling—you’ll have many, many more opportunities to write. But how many chances will you get to live in a dazzling international city?
    I hope this reluctance doesn’t have anything to do with a certain red-haired young gentleman! I know he’s adorable, but really—there are plenty of cute ones over here, too. In fact, Henry was just asking about you the other day . . .
    Please don’t keep me in suspense for much longer . . . let me know as soon as you decide you’re coming, and I’ll book your plane ticket.
     
    XXXOOO,
Sadie
    I shut my laptop without replying to Sadie’s e-mail. Was my mother right? Was I reluctant to go to London because of Dex?
    I was also distracted by Sadie’s mention of Henry. I’d met Henry Wentworth when I visited Sadie over the Christmas holidays, and we’d hit it off. Because of a misunderstanding with Dex—I’d accidentally given him the wrong e-mail address, and then when I didn’t hear from him while I was in London, I thought he was blowing me off—I’d allowed my friendship with Henry to blossom into a brief romance. I’d put that all behind me once Dex and I sorted out our relationship, but Henry and I were still friends, e-mailing each other on occasion.
    I shook off these thoughts. I was going to have to make a decision about London—and soon—but I really didn’t want thoughts of Dex, Wendy, or even Henry to come into it. I needed to think about what was best for my future—my education, college prospects, career path. That, I reasoned, was what I would tell a friend who was in a similar situation.
    I glanced at the clock and wondered what time the pool opened. I had weekends off from my job at the Fishers’, but Dex had a more erratic work schedule. Sometimes he was on the early shift at the pool, sometimes the evening, and he rarely got two days off in a row, unless he specifically requested them. He’d told me the night before that he’d be on duty at the pool that morning.
    I put on my boring navy blue tank suit, wishing, not for the first time, that I had enough style sense to pick out a trendy little bikini. The problem was, I had no idea what would look good on me. I made a mental note to ask Hannah for help when she returned from her trip to New York City. I might attend a school full of geniuses, but none of them matched Hannah’s brilliance when it came to clothes and shopping.
    It was ten past nine when I biked into the parking lot at the public pool. The temperature was just starting to heat up, the sun blasting down through a cloudless sky. By two, it would be painful to be anywhere near the blacktop parking lot. I dismounted my bike, locked it to the bike rack, and headed through the gate in the chain-link fence to the pool inside.
    The pool was a large rectangle with half of the space roped off into lanes and the other half left open for the kids to noodle around in. There were already a few dozen people in the water—some serious-looking swimmers cutting easily through the water as they did their laps and a bunch of kids paddling and splashing around one another like a family of playful otters.
    There was a cement deck surrounding the pool, and a number of chaises lined up on either of the long sides. On the short side closest to the parking lot, there was a snack bar, changing rooms, and an office where the lifeguards hung out when they weren’t on duty.
    I immediately looked up at the guard chair to see if Dex was there. He wasn’t. Instead, there was an athletic-looking girl with short brown hair and wearing an orange tank suit, sitting in the guard chair. She had a whistle on a cord around her neck, and looked